The man laughed at me as I took a pillow from the bed and set it down on the floor at the opposite side of the room. I couldn't get far enough away from him, because everything inside me recognised the room as closed, as myself being trapped, and gnawed at my stomach. I'd wiped the last remnants of Lowell's scent off of me using that spray and I regretted it.
I needed to sleep, and as he watched me move things out of the way with a level of curiosity in his eyes his phone vibrated and he answered it. Overhearing the conversation it sounded as though we might be together by breakfast tomorrow, which furthered my conviction in sleeping.
"I'm not worried." He chuckled, speaking low. It was as though he thought my hearing was so bad that I couldn't hear him speaking at the other end of the room, his face turned half away from me. "I'll bring him with to breakfast. I want to see how Lowell squirms in front of dad." He laughed, a raspy laugh.
I narrowed my eyes, a tickle of irritation in my chest.
I laid down and closed my eyes.
We'd figure something out tomorrow. The important thing was not to waste time struggling or panicking. We could only take things step by step at the moment.
I didn't want to make Lowell feel bad about his unfortunate family. We don't choose who we're born to, sometimes it's not always the best situation for us.
Although part of me still wanted to try calling the police, another part realised that Lowell may have been being dramatic, perhaps he wanted to defend his family, subconsciously or otherwise. I didn't want to hurt him. We would find a way out, even shivering as I was, swallowing down the odd tight crawling feeling in my stomach, I held the pure conviction we would think of something.
The heavy footsteps walking in my direction were unwanted, however.
"You still got your phone?" He asked me as he stopped just beside my head.
My heart raced a little faster, I felt the bulk of it in my pocket but kept my eyes closed and didn't answer.
He laughed. "You know I could drag you to my bed. I could fuckin' cover you in my scent. Watch Lowell stomach that." He laughed louder. "You really wanna ignore me boy?"
I bristled at that, opened my eyes and sat up suddenly, turning to look up at the ugly muscle bound, for lack of a more offensive word, prick, standing over me. "I am thirty." I spoke sharply, my eyes narrowed. "I very much doubt you match my age, so I'll thank you not to treat me like a child." I hissed.
I couldn't remember ever being quite so unpleasant to people as I was the past few days, but I felt as though they forced my hand, I'd never quite been treated this way before. Homophobia was a matter of course, but even then as someone who wasn't quite as flamboyant or outgoing, or even dating for most of my adult life, as some of my friends I didn't face what a lot of other gay men did. The only obvious tell was something more and more men were comfortable expressing regardless of sexuality.
He stilled for a second then crouched down and the way he did caused me to back up a bit before freezing as he loomed over me.
"You're human, you're as good as a child."
"Says the man acting like a petulant teenager warring with his brother over who gets their father's attention." I hissed.
I thought his face turned a particularly unhappy shade for a moment, his expression wrinkling in the centre. "You don't know shit bitch, you didn't even know my brother was a wolf and you want to pretend you know our relationship? You unwanted fuckin' mate."
I pursed my lips, my blood pumping, the way he crouched over me felt like he was five second away from lifting a hand to punch me in the face.
"How do you know I didn't know he was a wolf?" I asked gingerly, trying not to pull back. "And I'm not his mate. You'd know that if you knew your brother any bit as well as I do. I just happen to enjoy sleeping with him." I cringed inside, every word feeling as though it scraped the sides of my mouth getting them out.
He scoffed, but his eyes were wide like he couldn't believe the words coming out of my mouth. He kept quiet for a moment and just looked at me, eyes on me I thought I saw the barest hint of interest before he his hand gripped the longer strands of hair at the upper back of my head, my skin burning as I was lurched forwards.
"Great, then what's the difference between us? Why are you so afraid of sleeping in my bed, huh?"
The sudden contact making my skin crawl so badly that my hands hovered over his, not even wanting to make contact with his hand to pull him off of me, but unable to match his power to pull my head forward and out of his grip, I swallowed, exhaling, holding the awkward position.
"You don't wanna answer?" He asked me. The atmosphere felt like it was pressing my head down, something he was doing to the air around me, it made my blood feel cold, scary.
My tongue was glued to my throat, I had to manually remind my mouth how to move. "How about..." I took a breath. "The fact that I know Lowell..." I spoke carefully, and with as much condescension as I could manage. "Or the fact that you kidnapped us... dragged me out of his room... and are currently painfully gripping my hair... without my permission." I smiled at him, my eyes angry. "I would rather sleep in the bathtub."
He was still smiling, but his eyes had gone cold.
The silence between us made my stomach turn but I said nothing and resisted the urge to move.
"You know I could drag you to my bed too."
I didn't know what to say to that.
I looked around the room, wondering if it would be worth it to find a way to knock on the door at something as small as this.
I took a deep breath and touched his hand, trying to pull it off of me, the way my skin crawled made my stomach lurch.
"Look at that." He grinned. "Soft hands." His eyes glinted.
I felt some sense of horror, saw no trace of Lowell in his figure, form or features that could possibly have reassured me.
They were normal hands, with some hair on them, wider knuckles, long fingers, the same hands as everyone else. Yes, I did use some vitamin e, green tea, men's moisturiser on my hands and arms when they were getting dry, but I don't think that necessarily made them softer than any other man's.
I swung forward in a leap of faith and to my relief he let go of my hair.
I swallowed, standing up slowly, trying to hide my shaky legs. I wasn't proud of being afraid of him and would prefer him not to gain confidence from knowing.
"I don't know what you want from me." I spoke loud and face. "But either explain now or I will..." I looked around. "Break everything I get my hands on in here."
And granted, that was a threat, there were trophies and valuables, a massive mac computer and TV, a pool table and a mini fridge, a bar even, that would be horrifying to destroy but that was the intention after all.
He narrowed his eyes. "You can try," He got up and squared out his massive shoulders. "I'll break a bone in your body for every item you so much as damage."
He smiled at me. "Snap. There goes a finger. Snap. There goes your arm." He walked up at to me slowly as he spoke.
I took a step back this time, then another and another.
"My intention is to make Lowell uncomfortable, so that regardless of what dad wants with him, he pisses off with his wifey back to the shithole he came from."
I stopped slowly and immediately wished I hadn't as he got up in my personal space. Heart beating a little fast I looked up at him. "Then we have the same goal, at least in part."
"Do we now?"
"You think I want to be here?" I hissed. "I want to go back home with Lowell, neither of us want to be here. Have you conveniently forgotten the part where your father kidnapped us?"
He shrugged. "So what. Once Lowell realises my dad wants him to stay he'll be here, and when he's here he'll always be a threat to me."
"Why?" I asked, exasperated.
He scoffed. "Fuckin' humans man..." He took a step back. "Because I'm alpha, once my dad steps back I take over. And you know what, Lowell was fucking a fuckin' slave to my dad when he was young, good on him, but it got him a reputation. People think he deserves to be alpha..." He laughed, in a way that felt too high pitched to be sane.
"He deserves to be alpha? It's not a fucking democracy!" He spat, his anger spilling out into the room, making my skin feel oddly like it was burnt, and my hair stand on end. "I didn't choose to be alpha. Fate made me this way!" He jabbed his chest hard with his index finger. "And they still out there feelin' like they can just replace me if they smile at him hard enough."
He took a long breath.
I was quiet after the outburst, not sure how any of this worked and a little oddly discomforted with that thick anger still crumbling in the air.
"Well we're on the same side then. We just need to convince your father to let him go home."
Bazile turned his eyes on me and I felt uneasy, as if I was watching a bull in the path ahead slowly swing its head in my direction. "My father isn't easy to sway, and I don't even know what his plans for Lowell are. Just that my presence is undermined by Lowell being here. I broke him in fucking two, he has no business coming back."
I felt cold hearing that. Trying not to be swayed I blinked slowly and returned to the topic. "So talk to your father. What can Lowell do? He can't leave even if you try to make him ang- uncomfortable..."
The smile returned. "It's not about him choosing to leave really, it's a matter of my father seeing that he's just as rebellious as I am. He's never going to settle for the little brunette now he's got you is he?"
He grabbed my chin and I tried to pull back but hit the wall. "Huh?" He asked me. "Is he?"
I turned my head sharply to the side and tried to sidestep him. "For goodness sake." I snapped, the disgusting feeling lingered on my skin for minutes after the contact was ceased. "Why does everyone touch me freely here. It's frankly disturbing. Just how many members of this pack are gay?"
The smile never wandered from his face. "I'm not gay. I'm just interested in what Lowell's interested in. Who else is supposed to be gay?"
"That one from the van... Kasius." I grumbled. "He also stared at me a whole lot, touched my face."
He paused, then raised an eyebrow. "Huh... interesting." He turned back to me. "Get on the bed."
I frowned. "I said I won't."
"'I said I won't.'" He mocked me. "Shut up, you're not with a weak ass bitch like Lowell right now. If you don't behave nice and submissive I'll tie you up and discipline you. How does that sound?"
I narrowed my eyes.
"I'd be doing you a favour," His eyes glinted. "If dad ever caught wind of you two being... whatever you are with each other, his biggest offence would probably be how unsubmissive you are. Even if Lowell's a fucking bitch."
The angry spark in my chest flared up again. I took a deep breath. "I'm sorry to hear you have such an unfortunate family. Aside from Lowell it seems like you all are fairly miserable misguided people with an unexamined kink for BDSM that should both be educated and safe guarded. I'm not submissive, not in real life. Me doing as you say because you'll maim me isn't proof of submission, it's evidence of a willingness to live." I spat, looking him squarely in the eyes. "You wouldn't have any luck potty training a puppy."
I managed to pull away from him while I was talking, he followed slowly, but the moment I talked down to him sharply like that he seemed to listen with a dark eyed gaze.
"Useless, selfish, prat." I mumbled to myself, unable to restrain some of my anger, as I backed up.
His eyes burned, the moment he reached out my warning bells were ringing, he grabbed my shirt and dragged my forewords and started dragging me toward the bed.
"I don't fucking care how you reason it. In this house good mates kneel on the floor beside our feet and walk behind us, keep their eyes on the ground and do as their mates tell them." He was explaining while he dragged me like a ragdoll over there and my hands flailed, trying to catch the air, panic swimming in my chest. In fight mode I grabbed him instead and bit his forearm and he dropped me suddenly.
I fell down, sprawled out on the floor, the blood just barely coating my teeth.
He hissed and glared down at me, wide eyed and red in the face.
"Fucking shit. What the fuck..."
I swallowed, the blood tasted bitter in my mouth, vile.
My chest heaving as I looked up at him, I got up slowly and backed away wordlessly, returning to where I placed my pillow.
"Goodnight." I spoke forcefully, letting my anger penetrate the silence as I laid back down, one last glance seeing him examining his arm in shock, before, some while later, the lights switched off.
I thought I heard him laugh. "Fuckin psycho. I wanna watch Lowell try to wrestle this bitch into submission... he's fucked if he doesn't..."
[A/N] There's a patreon chapter 44.5 but I'll send out a notification for the chapter when it comes up.
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